According to Le Monde, Apple has refused to sell a book with a picture of tits on its cover. The publisher – a small press, which hardly anyone had heard of before this event – is crying foul. Using phrases like “censorship” and “a violation of freedom of expression,” this publisher is calling on the French Minister of Culture, and even the European Commission, to act on their behalf and force Apple to accept their book’s cover.

Now, I’ve written about Apple’s hypocrisy in this area before, but this is not about censorship, and it is no threat to the “freedom of creation,” as the French publisher claims. No one can force any store to sell a specific item; any retailer has the right to choose what they sell. You may not agree with their rules, but it in no way threatens your “freedom of expression.”

Apple does have stringent rules for their stores: these say that you can’t have nudity on covers of items, but they go much further, as developers I know have found out. There are many words you can’t use in descriptions, and the rules about how apps work are even more byzantine.

No, French publisher, you’re not being censored. Apple’s “prudishness” may bother you, but it’s their store, and you play by their rules. Apple sells their content in many countries that are far more prudish than the United States, so it’s probably that their rules are stricter for that reason. Get a grip.

So you consider any retailer who refuses to sell a product, for any reason, to be censoring it? I worked in a bookstore in France for several years, and there were occasionally books we got that we decided we didn’t want to sell. (There was a system where we’d get copies of every new book from certain publishers, so we couldn’t choose in advance.)

Apple’s not censoring the book. The contents of the book – judging from what the author has written – are certainly salacious, but Apple’s saying that if the cover is changed, that’s fine with them.

I’m pretty sure retailers have the right to refuse anything they want. Are they censoring apps now that they’re refusing Flappy Bird clones? Do they censor apps when a developer uses a specific keyword in a description that Apple does not allow?

“Do they censor apps when a developer uses a specific keyword in a description that Apple does not allow?”

Nope. Not censorship.

For a third time, unless you’re Humpty Dumpty, “censorship” has a pretty specific meaning: refusing to allow a product strictly due to perceived obscenity or objectionable political content. Hence the French tits cover ebook or the US drone strike notifier app qualify, while your examples don’t.

“Chucky, have you actually looked at the definition of the word censorship?”

Of course.

My OS X system dictionary says that a censor “suppresses any parts that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.”

Further, ALL the definitions and usages in my trusty OED refer to morality, obscenity, and political / military content. (And the OED is dispositive among reality-based folks.)

Again, when Cupertino refuses to allow an app because it doesn’t follow API guidelines, or give Apple its god-given 30% on e-commerce, that is not censorship. But when Cupertino refuses to allow an ebook with tits on its cover, or refuses to allow an app showing US drone strikes, that is, by indisputable definition, censorship.

This ain’t complicated, folks. It’s just the commonly accepted meaning of a word.

I have seen this stupid censorship on album and CD covers. Unless it is truly pornographic I can see no reason for this. Equally absurd is when they put some text or graphic over the original artwork. I had a Daniel Lanois CD “For the Beauty of Wynona” where the USA version did this. I know opinions differ on this. I suppose it is hard to get a consensus on what might be offensive. So the debate of art vs. pornography will go on.

The real question is whether it is censorship or not; whether it’s legal or not. I’m pretty sure retailers can refuse to sell anything they want. (It’s not easy to find something like this on Google, because the words are very common.)

I’m not saying that the specific picture is pornographic; I have no problem with it. I’m just reacting to the hyperbole of the French publisher who’s trying to get attention.

Aaaand if I run a children’s bookstore and refuse to sell hardcore porn, I’m an evil censor, too. From that point of view, the worst censor in the world Is Fox News, where they publish but one opinion.

Far be it from me to defend the French – if it were up to me nothing French would ever get published.

That said, you are confusing the suppression of freedom of expression with censorship. They are not the same.

What Apple is doing is censorship by definition. Look it up.

Are they suppressing anyone’s freedom of expression? Of course not. There is no coercion – Apple is free to make up its own rules, and if they don’t like tits on their store, fine. Disingenuous, but fine.

To pretend that everything is fine, however, is naive bordering on stupid. Apple commands a large part of the market, and Amazon an even larger. If both of them decide to ban content for whatever hypocritical reasons they may have, then we are in trouble.

Are they then not censoring the cover? Again, that’s fine. It’s their shop. But it is troubling that Apple behaves this way, and – I hope you will agree – the situation is not as simple as you make it out to be in your post.

“To pretend that everything is fine, however, is naive bordering on stupid. Apple commands a large part of the market, and Amazon an even larger. If both of them decide to ban content for whatever hypocritical reasons they may have, then we are in trouble.”

Agreed.

Upthread, I’ve been merely arguing semantics with folks who don’t seem to have any understanding of what the word “censorship” means.

But beyond the semantics, the dual-monopsony formed by Apple and Amazon makes their forays into censorship heavily troubling on public policy grounds.

(And FWIW, Apple has been far worse than Amazon in terms of censorship, which is reason #137 why you should be buying your content from Amazon instead of Apple.)

“Again, when Cupertino refuses to allow an app because it doesn’t follow API guidelines, or give Apple its god-given 30% on e-commerce, that is not censorship. But when Cupertino refuses to allow an ebook with tits on its cover, or refuses to allow an app showing US drone strikes, that is, by indisputable definition, censorship.”

If an app uses a keyword that Apple doesn’t like, and they refuse it, it’s not the same thing?

“If an app uses a keyword that Apple doesn’t like, and they refuse it, it’s not the same thing?”

Yet again, no. Censorship only applies to grounds of morality, obscenity, and political / military content, if we use the commonly accepted definition of the word, as opposed to personal, Humpty Dumpty definitions. It’s not a catch-all phrase for refusal to publish or sell.

(Parenthetically, I refer you to Michalis Sarigiannidis’ concern, which I seconded.)

But regardless of whether or not you share that concern, Apple is still denying to sell the tits ebook and the US drone strike app due to Apple’s censorship. If you go to the OED, you’ll see that you don’t have to be a government to censor.

The semantic case here really is pretty indisputable, no matter what definition of the word you had in your head when you originally wrote the post.

@Eric: I’ll bite – are you talking about my line about the French? Oh well. in for a penny… I should also add then, the French do not understand irony. But hate speech? Some of my best friends are French. Actually, they’re Belgian. Flemish Belgian.

“Chucky, your faith in the infallibility of the OED borders on the Catholic.”

Well, if we are looking to avoid Humpty Dumpty-ism, then we need to arrive at a commonly accepted definition of words.

And for English, the OED is as good as it gets, with the exception of very recent words, since the OED editions get released so very slowly. But “censor” isn’t a very recent word. (OED traces it back to 1533 in context of the Roman officials who supervised public morals – which is where the word comes from, of course – and traces it back to 1592 in its modern sense as I’ve described above.)

We’re not trying to determine The One True Church here. We’re just trying to determine a commonly accepted definition of words. And the OED fulfills that function for English far better than anything else. If you wish to have an idiosyncratic definition of “censor” or any other word, be my guest. But then we’re back to Humpty Dumpty…

Chucky, all I’m getting at is that words evolve in their usage, and some words come particularly loaded with social significance. In fact, some organisations take advantage of this by crying “censorship” whenever they don’t follow a rule they disagree with. This, I believe, is such a case.

Michalis, yours is an example of a whole sentence not meaning what it says, but what you say it means. You know you’re being ironic, but a humourless, literal-minded person could misinterpret it.

And thanks to Mark for showing what the real problem here is: the arbitrariness of Apple’s rules and application thereof.

“Chucky, all I’m getting at is that words evolve in their usage, and some words come particularly loaded with social significance. In fact, some organisations take advantage of this by crying “censorship” whenever they don’t follow a rule they disagree with. This, I believe, is such a case.”

And finally, we get to the nub of the issue.

First, FWIW, the meaning of the word “censorship” hasn’t really evolved much since the Enlightenment. And more crucially to the topic at hand, censorship has had negative connotations among civilized folks since relatively soon after Gutenberg. These negative connotations have increased over time, but they were pretty big even back in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Hence why Kirk claimed censorship was not an issue here twice in his original post, even though the issue at hand is indisputably censorship. He, (and you), don’t like the negative connotation in correctly calling Apple’s censorship rules “censorship”. But redefining words because you don’t like their connotations is just Orwellianism.

And folks don’t cry censorship “whenever they don’t follow a rule they disagree with”. When something gets rejected from Cupertino’s store because it doesn’t follow API rules, or other non-censorship reason, the creator may loudly object on a variety of grounds, but they don’t don’t cry censorship unless they’re idiots, since what is happening isn’t censorship.

But when Apple rejects things like the tits cover ebook or the US drone strike app, then the creators sometimes do cry censorship, which they have every right to do since it is censorship. The fact that you don’t like the connotations of the word in this context doesn’t change that.

You are free to defend Cupertino’s censorship rules, arbitrary or not, if you so wish. Arguments can be made on both sides, as is generally the case with censorship. But you don’t get to redefine words to boost your argument in defense of Cupertino’s rules, unless you wish to follow the Humpty Dumpty path.